It wasn’t difficult for the team at Strand Group to choose a name for the Group’s new headquarters. Once they looked into the history of the site they found it had a tremendous industrial heritage. Sailmaker House was a unanimous choice in recognition of the importance of sailcloth making to the area. Sailcloth was manufactured on the site of the new HQ as early as 1790, when W F Moore and Sons decided to locate their factory in Tromode. The business became a significant supplier of sailcloth to the British Navy as well as to other sailing fleets worldwide.
The photograph shows the original factory with the mill manager’s house on the hillside above. In its day Moores was a significant employer on the Island. At its peak it employed around 150 men, women and children and the village of Cronkbourne was built to provide accommodation for workers and their families. It was the advent of steamships in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that signaled the decline in demand for sailcloth and in 1906 the factory closed.
In 1911 the old sailcloth factory became the home of the Clucas Laundry which moved from Circular Road in Douglas. The laundry business was expanding due to a growth in tourism on the Island and the Tromode works was home to the laundry for 91 years. The Clucas laundry and dry-cleaning business was closed in November 2002. Since that time Clucas Plc has focused on developing the Tromode Estate. The new Gateway Development, which includes Strand Group’s new HQ, is the latest part of the development plan.
Managing Director of Clucas Plc, Alex Thomson, said of the project, ‘This is an important development which reflects the progressive ambitions of both Strand Group and ourselves. It has been a pleasure working with John Hellowell (Chairman of Strand Group) and his colleagues on this project.’
Some of the Strand Team are actually returning to the site of their original home. Krypton Contract Cleaning was originally based at the Clucas Laundry site, and was bought from Clucas by Strand Group in 2010.
Find out more about Strand group at www.strandgroup.im
